Help me Chart a course

[CapnElan]

Hello all,
After growing up near Cape Cod as a child and now living in Missouri I’ve always had that yearning.… “Sea Fever”. Last spring I finally took my first step at age 58. I bought a 27 foot sloop on Lake Carlisle in Illinois. It’s an old 73 Coronado and was a very reasonable price to explore the dream.

Harbormaster said I sail that boat more last summer then it had been sailed in the last five years it had been in his harbor. I have been smitten.

I’ve taken the boat out on the hard I’m going to repaint it, put in a depth finder, and do some very modest repairs so I can enjoy it more and learn more about sailing.

Here is my question. Over the course of the next 10 years I would like to become an open Bluewater sailor. I need to chart the course and I’m asking for any and all opinions as to how to proceed. I have books and have been reading but I don’t even have my ASA 101. How should I proceed? How should I proceed? Should I get my 103 and try doing bareback rentals along the coast? Should I try to find a position as an “aging crew member“ LOL. I’m still pretty agile and strong.

People in this form will understand what I feel when I’m in the boat with a strong wind.Others think I’m crazy or perhaps even reckless. I don’t want to be that poor gentleman that fell off his boat this year in the Atlantic floating away on a life preserver while his wife remained on the boat. I would like to be prepared and understand everything that I’m doing. YouTube videos of people ocean crossing are inspirational but tend to be few on operational details. As an old military person I know there’s nothing like doing.

Please give me a hand. I thank you in advance because I know you’ll respond. Sailing community has been the friendliest bunch of people that I have ever met, always willing to give you advice-some of that bad. LMAO. It’s just that I think I might need a new liver if I hang out with you all too long.

[boatman61]

Hi CapnElan.. Welcome to CF..
Congratulations on what you've achieved so far.
I would suggest getting your A103 if only for gaining new/expanded knowledge from the classes..
Not sure what exactly the A103 entails but figure it must be the US equivalent of something like the RYA Day Skipper if it permits chartering boats.
Navigation, sail handling, docking and anchoring etc.. find out what you may be doing wrong or better ways to do things.. it does not hurt and will stand in good stead for charters 'out country' if the urge takes you.
Keep on trucking..
Oh.!!!! and hard drinking is not a requirement.. just carry some for when you bump into us..

[ElVikingo]

Taking the ASA courses out on the water really helped me a lot. You and your wife could take them together so you both feel confident. Then just sail. Good times. Congrats on your boat and pursuing the dream. Good luck my friend.

[CapnElan]

Thank you for your reply. I was just in Portugal in October! I went down to Harbor near cascais And spoke to people rent boats. They told me that no American certification would be adequate to charter a boat in European waters. Is that true?

Over the winter I’m training my liver.

[CapnElan]

Thank you for the advice. I have to admit I chuckled at your response. It was only because I no longer have a wife that I actually was able to start sailing. Now that’s funny. Meanwhile the young lady friend seems very interested.

[s/v Moondancer]

While I generally agree with basic sail training, having taught the courses myself, I still advocate learning by going one-step-at-a-time by yourself. You have a good little boat that I would happily take to the Caribbean and beyond.

Bareboat charter companies will probably not let you single hand but anyway you are better off spending the money on sailing courses, your own boat, and your own trips. You need to get the boat to the ocean, Gulf is easier to learn in then the Atlantic. Get her to Key West and then you can sail the Keys and the Bahamas and by then you will be ready to work your way to the Caribbean.

I take crew, I am presently 3,000 nm from Japan and my wife and I will get Moon Dancer there and then I will take crew Japan to Alaska. I do not have any open slots until August for the Alaska to Seattle run. My last crew member who sailed 3,000 blue water miles with me is now teaching US Sailing cruising courses. I pay all boat and food expenses, you pay your own travel.

Your age is not a problem, I was 69 last week, and I suspect Boatman is a whole generation older than I am!

pm me your e-mail and we can stay in touch

[CapnElan]

Originally Posted by s/v Moondancer

While I generally agree with basic sail training, having taught the courses myself, I still advocate learning by going one-step-at-a-time by yourself. You have a good little boat that I would happily take to the Caribbean and beyond.



Bareboat charter companies will probably not let you single hand but anyway you are better off spending the money on sailing courses, your own boat, and your own trips. You need to get the boat to the ocean, Gulf is easier to learn in then the Atlantic. Get her to Key West and then you can sail the Keys and the Bahamas and by then you will be ready to work your way to the Caribbean.



I take crew, I am presently 3,000 nm from Japan and my wife and I will get Moon Dancer there and then I will take crew Japan to Alaska. I do not have any open slots until August for the Alaska to Seattle run. My last crew member who sailed 3,000 blue water miles with me is now teaching US Sailing cruising courses. I pay all boat and food expenses, you pay your own travel.



Your age is not a problem, I was 69 last week, and I suspect Boatman is a whole generation older than I am!



pm me your e-mail and we can stay in touch

Esimckes@gmail.com

Thank you so much for that encouraging response. And you’re the first person to tell me I should get my Coronado down to the gulf. I could get it to Kentucky lake which of the Mississippi. It was a West Coast coastal cruiser And then somebody shipped it to the Midwest. They ripped out the head because it’s on a lake but that’s no big deal as long as I don’t spend more than a weekend on it with the Porta potty. I would have to completely re-fitted. She is a solid boat But I’m wondering if I should just buy one and marina it someplace inexpensive and just fly down. t

As far as my desire to be crew, I am in a situation where I will have three or four months off but not in a row. That is I’ll work two months and to be off one month. So I get about 30 days at most at one time. I was thinking thinking that should be good enough. Would that fit into one of your cruises?

[krafthaus]

I did ASA 101, 103 & 104. Then we started chartering to gain experience & confidence and worked our way along from there.

So I’d say you are on the right track. Take some courses if you like, but then just sail that boat & keep learning.

Swapping boats or getting yours to saltwater would let you gain even more experience & with a month off at a time it sounds like you’d have some serious fun.

Best of luck to you!!

[brigittela]

Hello I'm trying to follow the same track. I am taking ASA 101, 103 and 104 out of Fort Lauderdale next week. I would recommend it. The books are great and learning hands on will really help. I would also recommend joining the group Off Shore Passages to crew on blue water to gain more experience from people who have done it many times. There should be a lot of opportunity coming up to crew for boats leaving the BVI and heading back to US.

[anacapaisland42]

Seriously......buy a 12 foot sailing dink, with a main sail and foresail and centerboard. ..sail the blazes out of it all this year. At the same time download a sail boat plotting/racing game.......
You'll have fun with little risk and really learn how to sail.
Bill

Originally Posted by CapnElan

Hello all,
After growing up near Cape Cod as a child and now living in Missouri I’ve always had that yearning.… “Sea Fever”. Last spring I finally took my first step at age 58. I bought a 27 foot sloop on Lake Carlisle in Illinois. It’s an old 73 Coronado and was a very reasonable price to explore the dream.

Harbormaster said I sail that boat more last summer then it had been sailed in the last five years it had been in his harbor. I have been smitten.

I’ve taken the boat out on the hard I’m going to repaint it, put in a depth finder, and do some very modest repairs so I can enjoy it more and learn more about sailing.

Here is my question. Over the course of the next 10 years I would like to become an open Bluewater sailor. I need to chart the course and I’m asking for any and all opinions as to how to proceed. I have books and have been reading but I don’t even have my ASA 101. How should I proceed? How should I proceed? Should I get my 103 and try doing bareback rentals along the coast? Should I try to find a position as an “aging crew member“ LOL. I’m still pretty agile and strong.

People in this form will understand what I feel when I’m in the boat with a strong wind.Others think I’m crazy or perhaps even reckless. I don’t want to be that poor gentleman that fell off his boat this year in the Atlantic floating away on a life preserver while his wife remained on the boat. I would like to be prepared and understand everything that I’m doing. YouTube videos of people ocean crossing are inspirational but tend to be few on operational details. As an old military person I know there’s nothing like doing.

Please give me a hand. I thank you in advance because I know you’ll respond. Sailing community has been the friendliest bunch of people that I have ever met, always willing to give you advice-some of that bad. LMAO. It’s just that I think I might need a new liver if I hang out with you all too long.

[Time2Go]

Originally Posted by CapnElan

Here is my question. Over the course of the next 10 years I would like to become an open Bluewater sailor. I need to chart the course and I’m asking for any and all opinions as to how to proceed. I have books and have been reading but I don’t even have my ASA 101. How should I proceed? How should I proceed? Should I get my 103 and try doing bareback rentals along the coast? Should I try to find a position as an “aging crew member“ LOL. I’m still pretty agile and strong.

.

“Aging Crew Member” come on man you are still young
I have a few years on you and crew as much as I want
Even though I have been sailing on and off my entire life
It was only at around 50 that I really got back into it.
The key for me was spending 3 weeks in the UK
and gualifying up to RYA Coastal Skipper/Tidal
This also automatically got me the ICC
Right or wrong there is a big difference in how the ASA and RYA
are perceived internationally.
Go for one of the 0 to Day Skipper programs ( 12 days )
The cost of the course plus transportation will be less than the
equivalent ASA certs and you get a nice European trip to boot.
Cheers
Neil

[alley]

Hi, CapnElan!

Don't underestimate US Power Squadron courses. For navigation, they can take you from being a GPS user all the way to celestial navigator. Their marine electronics series is pretty good, too, and their weather course also gets very good feedback. They also have a class for sailing, but unless your local squadron teaches it on the water, you'd probably be better off signing up for one of those week-long, live-aboard cruising classes.

USPS laid the foundation for me to get my 100-ton license.

For offshore stuff, best to crew with someone experienced first, but make sure they're patient and willing to answer questions and explain things. You can get a lot of valid experience sailing in one of the longer races on the Great Lakes (e.g., the Mac, the Lake Ontario 300/600, etc).

One thing that I've heard universally from circumnavigators I've spoken with is that participating in the local round-the-cans racing provided them with invaluable experience that came in handy when they went offshore. Years later, having started on the Wednesday night circuit myself, I can concur with that opinion. In the classes I teach now, I tell my students that if they really want to learn to cruise, they should get out and race. It will teach them how to handle their boat in a wide range of conditions, in traffic, and when things don't go quite right. It will teach them to read wind and waves and weather. It will give them confidence in themselves and in their boat.

Above all, have fun! After all, that's the objective, right?

Tom

[captmikem]

Elan,
A long long time ago I lived near a lake in Texas, I bought a boat much like yours, a Columbia 26, no engine. I learned to sail her on that lake.

I loved to sail and had a bit of the fever you speak of, so after a bit I took her to the gulf, and sailed around Florida, the Keys, and the Bahamas. Nothing teaches you to sail like a boat with no motor.

I found work on tugs and eventually got a small license (1,000 tons). I took a bit of a holiday from tugs and went to work for a well-known sailing school just as ASA was coming out, I was an ASA instructor and instructor evaluator. I had a lot of students teaching them what I had learned.

ASA is good, but if you have the time and a small boat, spending time on her is the best teacher going. Try and stay off the intracostal as most of it is motoring and the most you learn there is the buoy system and how to get off the bottom.

While you have your boat out it would be good to put in a simple marine head with a small flow through holding tank. Keep things simple. The trip from Kentucky Lakes to the gulf is interesting, I have made that trip in reverse, but consider the Tombigbee, it is much more scenic and less traffic.

I finally got a larger license and work large ships and mega yachts now, but fondly remember sailing my little Columbia, it was a great time and a great learning experience, it was a freedom one does not have when overloaded with all the latest gear, electronics, engines, "safety" items, scheduals etc.

Good luck with your adventure, and never be afraid to let go and sail.

M

[hamburking]

Taking courses is all well and good if that's what you want to do.

But IMHO, all you need to do is more sailing. Sail your boat. Sail on other peoples boats. Take other sailors out on your boat and pepper them with questions till they get annoyed. Read. Ask questions. Watch youtube videos. Ask more questions. Try stuff out for yourself. Have fun.

FWIW, I don't have a single course or piece of paper that says I can sail. I've had 8 boats (so far), sailed maybe 50,000 miles. Crossed one ocean. Sailed everything from Lasers to Brigantines (but not a single cat).

I've lost count of how many deliveries I've done. There's something wonderful about showing up at a boat you've never seen, looking it over, then taking it out for a big trip.

There is something you can learn from everyone you meet. Your job is to find out what it is. And you might just have a ton of fun and make some great friends along the way.